Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
 Another
reason why Mel Gibson should quit while he’s ahead,
franchise-wise.
This is a poor follow-up to the previous two classics, and a
sadly unconvincing end to Mad Max’s celluloid career.
Civilisation is burned out, and so is Max. Looking like a
long-haired beggar in a Cecil B. DeMille Biblical epic, he wanders
into Bartertown looking for his stolen camel train.
Bartertown is a medieval jumble of pipes and tunnels in an old
strip mine run by Tina Turner as a kind of jive-ass priestess of
camp who rules her slaves in a tight gown made of chicken wire and
dog muzzles.
When filming ended, one assumes she re-used her wardrobe in
Vegas.
The town gets its energy from distilled pig manure, and to get
his possessions back, Max must exchange 24 hours of his life and
survive not only a dunk in the pig manure, but a visit to the
Thunderdome.
This is a caged circus arena in which two combatants settle
their disputes and avoid wars by meeting hand-to-hand with spikes,
chain saws, and no rules, compered by an Australian Howard Cosell
who shouts to the bloodthirsty crowd: "Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, dyin' time is here!"
Narrowly escaping death at the four hands of something called
the Master Blaster, Max is next rescued from a place of sandstorms
and earthquakes called The Crack in the Earth by a desert tribe of
feral warrior children descended from the survivors of an airplane
crash.
They all end up in a post-apocalyptic demolition derby, pursued
by Tina Turner and the tattooed freaks of Bartertown, smashing
planes, locomotives, motorcycles, and jeeps made of scrap metal
and buggy wheels.
Of course none of this makes any sense, so just sit back and
enjoy looking at the pictures. Imagination is all that counts in Mad
Max Beyond Thunderdome, and there is plenty of it.
It's a world unto itself, with its own laws ("Bust the
deal, face the wheel!") and its own philosophy
("Remember - no matter where you go, there you are").
The violence and horror and carnage are abundant (it's pretty
noisy, too) but it all finally becomes funny.
Acting is the last thing on anybody's mind, but Mel Gibson gets
through it without smiling, and Tina Turner, as the barbaric queen
of Bartertown, is Grace Jones with soul food.
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